The present invention relates to inflated containers and, more particularly, to an improved apparatus and process for producing gas-inflated containers having one or more compartments that fluidly communicate with one another.
Various apparatus and methods for forming inflated cushions, pillows, or other inflated containers are known. Inflated cushions are used to package items, by wrapping the items in the cushions and placing the wrapped items in a shipping carton, or simply placing one or more inflated cushions inside of a shipping carton along with an item to be shipped. The cushions protect the packaged item by absorbing impacts that may otherwise be fully transmitted to the packaged item during transit, and also restrict movement of the packaged item within the carton to further reduce the likelihood of damage to the item.
Many conventional inflatable cushions have the form of an inflated bag. While very useful in many packaging applications, such bag-type cushions cannot be wrapped around an object to be packaged.
Some inflatable cushions include a plurality of inflatable chambers, with partitions separating the individual chambers. The partitions allow the cushion to be wrapped about an object. However, such cushioning is generally of the pre-formed type, i.e., wherein the individual chambers are pre-fabricated at a factory or other non-packaging location. This increases the material cost to the packager, and often requires that several different types, e.g., sizes, styles, shapes, etc., of inflatable cushioning be kept by the packager in order to be able to adequately package objects having different sizes, shapes, etc. Not only does this further increase the material cost to the packager, but the necessity of changing cushioning types is cumbersome and requires a slow down in the rate at which objects can be packaged. Moreover, variations in the process of making pre-formed cushions can cause alignment and tracking problems in the inflation/sealing machines, resulting in poorly-inflated and/or poorly-sealed cushions, which may deflate prematurely or otherwise fail to protect the packaged product.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an apparatus and process for making, inflating, and sealing inflated containers that have one or more compartments in fluid communication with one another. This would allow such cushions to be formed at a packaging site and then wrapped about objects to be packaged.